I only get about 2gig on my Samsung Note and logon to this forum and it never runs out.. Who are you with.. Perhaps someone has tapped into your internet... Change your password.. Who are you with... ?? I upload huge files and use it with John and never run out.. Not sure the plan we are on but I think its $49 per month... Second fastest speed offered..

Telstra are far too expensive.. I would be given them the flick.. If you change over you can keep all your normal phone numbers.. I would not bother with Optus either. Give Westnet a call.. I am sure you can do better..

Destiny under contract for another 12 months , but I must admit I like Telstra its the best for mobile phone communication in remote areas ,from my 4 wheel drive and bush walking days ,I will see what happens over the next few weeks cheers Rolly1 ( will keep them in mind though )

Destiny wrote:That review you posted up is quite old, and in many cases the reviews go way back to 2008.. There have been many versions of this lens since then, in fact the image on that forum is just about the first version... It was not that great back then... The lens has come a long way since the first version.. If you are going to use a review it really needs to be a more current one, no more than a year.. If you did that with some of the Canon and Nikon lenses, you would see big difference in some of the most common lens reviews during its continued development and improvements over a period of 5 years..

10,000 image and all of them a keeper.!!. That's quite extraordinary..!! I have read and viewed so many videos of world renowned photographers and been to some exclusive forums in the city too, all of which the photographers suggest it is very common to capture many photos but only a small percentage of them are keepers..

Destiny..

Destiny, if you are unable to read my english well, so be it. But I would like to ask you to try a bit harder.

I wrote "Every photo needs to be a keeper", I did not say every photo is. The percentage of keepers needs to be as high as possible. To achieve that I use f 2.8 lenses, not something like the Bigma, the people I work for would send me away or at least not hire me again.

Of course, I can imagine situations were the definition of what is a keeper will be different. In terms of photos of marathon runners we are talking about sharp/in focus and closely cropped, preferably full body shot and eyes open and visible. Yes it is not an easy task but fortunately I use the right lens for it....

The reviews I refered to have a last comment of Jun 30, 2012. If you don't like the reviews I came up with it would look much better if you came up with something more recent yourself. Remarkable that so far you seem unable to do so. Looks almost like they do not exist......

Last edited by HansKeesom on Sat Jan 04, 2014 3:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.

rolly1 wrote: HansKeesom I was out taking pics of small birds with D800 and 70 to 200 2.8 with 2 times converter no problems with focus it was later in the afternoon low light ,I had a problem with D800 so I swapped to my D7000 body would not focus on anything hunted all over the place depending what you are doing 2.8 lenses are a little less important than they used to be, depending on what body you have 6D 5Dmk3 D800 D4

Yes I know/agree 2.8 lenses are good.Yes I know/agree that in good light conditions f4 lenses will do just as wellYes I know/agree that in great light conditions f5.6 lenses will do just as wellYes I know/agree that in great light conditions you will even have a few keepers with a lens like the Bigma.Yes I know/agree that things may vary depending on the body you use.

The point is, 2.8 lenses do well in almost every situations, de Bigma in only few.

That why I used the example of the marathonrunners, moving objects in sometime less then perfect light and the need to have a high as possible % of keepers. All that together, I still do not want to take risks and therefore I go for 2.8

HansKeesom wrote:Yes I know/agree that in great light conditions you will even have a few keepers with a lens like the Bigma.Yes I know/agree that things may vary depending on the body you use.

"If your photographs aren't good enough, you're not close enough." Robert Capa

Though i own 300 and 500mm Nikon lenses i use them VERY rarely - i bought them for the use on a specific job.

best, Klaus

I was thinking of Robert already. Or as Ken Rockwell described it when reviewing the 150-500 sigma : "If 200mm or 300mm isn't long enough for wildlife for you, nothing is. Getting closer will get you better results than a longer lens." http://www.kenrockwell.com/sigma/150-500mm.htm

and later he says : "My caution is that most people trying to shoot things at long distances underestimate the importance of getting closer.

A 500mm lens sounds like a cure-all for any distant subject, but it you're trying to photograph birds and wildlife, too much is never enough. My professional bird photographer friends own 800mm lenses and wear wetsuits to slide around in the mud sneaking up close on critters, and still have to use teleconverters and crop the resulting images!

If 200mm or 300mm isn't getting you what you want, 500mm probably won't either. Getting closer is much more important than how many millimeters you're packing."

Thats right George, I did ask for a tele lens for my D800, 'Affordable' too as the title suggest.. But if others had their way, I would be crawling about in the bush filled with the snakes, poisonous spiders and other nasty yucky things, not to mention mosquitos the size of jelly beans, just to capture a photo of a animal, bird or creature that can hear a pin drop from 5 km away.... but in my case where we like to go, I would need to be a mountain goat too, so I would need full mountaineering gear, to descend into the cannon, and then backup on the other side.. But its ok, I wouldn't have to be so sneaky coming out since all of the critter would be long gone...

Rolly1 first mentioned that Tamron 150-600mm here, but I have bought my Sigma 50-500mm now so its all good.. I would love to give that lens test though.. I would also like to have the money to buy the Canon Lens too, if I were rich, but since I am not and the title suggest 'Affordable', I think if I had that kind of money I would be buying a new car + a new iMac + some other photography gear on my wish list and still have enough money left over to take my entire family out for dinner to show-and-tell the photos I captured using my Affordable Sigma 50-500mm..

Destiny...

gkaefer wrote:did not read all Posts of the thread....Destiny you did ask for a tele lens for your Nikon...

In our home, anything that wiggle or crawls or has more than 2 legs gets the sole of my shoe with a very quick exit .. Mind you, I rather like some of the bigger beetles like those huge 70mm black ones with a horn.. They always seem to role over on their back.. I put them back upright .. Did you know, long before dinosaurs there were bugs as big as cars... We have had centipedes about 150mm long downstairs which are very poisonous, or so we were told.. The Geckos gets them or the monstrous Blue Tongue that lives in the garage..

So, now you know the real reason for my zoooom lens.. To snap a few bugs from a huuuge distance. .haahahThis big spender captured at the Brisbane Botanic Gardens is about 100mm, its a female.. The little sider is the male.. The wind was blowing the web so hard to get focused.. I have only just leant the how to use the 51 points of focus using the D800.. That would have made a big difference.. It was also quite a distance from me and I had to capture it hand-held..

Nikon has some 2.8 lenses too. Optics are the same in Nikon and Canon land. AF in both camps depend a lot on receiving enough light and hardly work beyond f4.The review you refer too is hardly credible.The second lens show a price which is high if the lens does not deliver. And I am almost sure it will not. I rather place one or two 2x extenders on 2.8 lenses.

Its half past midnight 15 January 2014.. and I waited up all night for the clouds to move on.. The moon is almost full, and bright in the night sky... I think I need more zooooooooom. I think not too bad hand held.. I can see the craters and damage caused by thing hitting the moon. Amazing its just so far away yet I can capture a nice photo of it. Click on the image to zoom in on it..

hi destiny that's really good hand held ,if you get a ( t adaptor) you can connect the d800 on to a telescope ,the camera club I am in , the last 2 years has hooked up with local astronomy club , some members have got good pics but when its my turn the cloud cover moves in , I upgraded to ptp 2 today so the fun begins ha ha ,its been a hot week in Adelaide 44 deg c plus, 46 deg c tomorrow and a cool change Friday 40 deg c 28 deg sat and sunday , I test air cons but they don't have any water in them so its a hot job cheers rolly1

Destiny how's the lens going it's been a while , dropped the controller for my robot been fixed and its on its way back from Josef can't wait till it gets back , rang up Telstra ( only way to get change to contract ) I am swapping back to ADSL, 100 gig and much faster instead of 8 gig of wireless so that should fix problems ,Still no Tamron 150 to 600 has to turn up sooner or later cheers rolly1

Hi.. I have been keeping an eye on the Tameron but I am so glad I did not wait to buy it.. By all accounts it seems to me to be a bit of a yuck lens.. I love my Sigma 50-500 is awesome in comparison.. Awesome in comparison with other lenses too.. http://www.andersonstockphotos.com/blog ... ield-test/

Each time I use my Sigma it I get such a thrill out of using it.. Even hand held the images are very good, love it.. I really want to capture some bracketed shots to turn into LDR or HDR Tone mapped as soon as I can.. I need to buy a rubber band for my lens to stop lens creep.. I also need to buy a Black Rapid strap since I am so worried about dropping the lens.. and camera.. since its so heavy. We might go out for a long drive soon.. I would love to capture a gigga pixel pano which I tried to do a few weeks ago but the lens creeped.. Well, we think that was the issue... I used my NN4 with Rotor for that. Just wish that had finer increments on the top rail. The Nodal Ninja M series has a great rotor for the top rail with a fine increment feature but too expensive for now... John really wants the Ultimate M2.. We think this Pano Head is probably the best on the market..

yes its good when you get something and it ends up being exactly what you want ,and works like you want , I still will be holding out for tamron though I am still not in a position to get either lens , but we are getting there , I said I had a list , Tripod ,ptp2 , Live Pano ,now we are up to lenses wide angle first or Tele photo ,Nikon 14 to 24 or 16 to 35 ,Tokina 16 to 28 , Sigma 50 to 500 or Tamron 150 to 600 does not matter which way I go it will take some saving cheers rolly1

Destiny wrote:Its half past midnight 15 January 2014.. and I waited up all night for the clouds to move on.. The moon is almost full, and bright in the night sky... I think I need more zooooooooom. I think not too bad hand held.. I can see the craters and damage caused by thing hitting the moon. Amazing its just so far away yet I can capture a nice photo of it. Click on the image to zoom in on it..

Interesting.... A few years ago, John took me to Alice Springs.. Then Uluru... Shame I did not have a good camera back then.. The stars were just soooo amazing.. Very clear and millions and millions of them. Shooting starts too.. Some I think were planets.. John told me that the light from the stars we see now was generated when the dinosaurs walked the earth... Hard to imagine that.. That is why the most powerful telescopes are actually 4D.. you are looking back in time...

Hey.. That seems better... I can use 8 gig in one day... haha... The speed you get is more globally accepted... Other countries claim to have high speed but its a bit of a fake thing.. Its fast within their own boarders but rubbish outside of it.... Thats because their technology are not able to use other countries adaptive technologies..

I am needing to by a Black Rapid Cargo camera strap... My 50-500mm + D800 is heavy so I am worried about dropping it.... Consequently i have not used my lens as much as I would like to use it. I will buy one soon... I just bought a anti twist camera plat which I needed. Its designed for my D800..

When I am at school I use a much better Mac so I can work really fast but it does not have all the software I need... I tend to create and process a lot of stuff in a short time... I so long for a better Mac..... I now have 8 gig of RAM but its more than that.. Its the processors... the graphics cards... the build.. As soon as we get rich I will buy a great new Mac... I am really limited by my hardware... I love my iMac .. emmmm.......my husbands iMac since I do not even own my own iMac.. but I do have a Samsung Note.. .. Oh hum... in time I guess I will afford to buy a nice new supper iMac.... Just two more bank payments and my 50-500mm will be mine.. hehe... I really would recommend anyone looking for a great lens to buy one... Not so sure about the Tamron.. but each to their own....

Destiny you think its heavy now wait till you get to my age ,That's why I took up vr photography its tripod based , apart from the fact I like it etc , People in the club have straps like that and they seem happy with them , I use a think tank photo holster with back harness it will take my D800 with 70 to 200 2.8 with hood on or when I had it, sigma 80 to 400 with hood reversed ,gets in the way a little when you sit down but apart from that works well ,will see when I get 50 to 500 or 150 to 600 if they fit , The computer that I built for APG and PTP2 has an I7 processor and 32 gig of ram still very very slow with APG ,hope it improves when I up it to 64 gig, cheap compared with macs I think , I have an Ipad does that rate ,I still can't get it to do anything I want ,very disappointed with it at the moment ,I think I should have got a windows tablet, surfs the net well but that's about it ,its just too different I think cheers Rolly1

I tried using a tripod to capture flying bugs and birds but its painful.. You need to be really quick so a tripod is not the answer.. I tried to capture a dragonfly when it landed and focus on different body parts but they do not remain in one spot for more than a second or two.. I wanted to try focus stacking.. This is as close to a clear shot as I could get hand held at full zoom.. Very happy with my 50-500mm and I am getting used to the weight.. I rotated the tripod ring on the lens to make it easier to hold steady...

Rolly1, did you check out the new Tamron 150 to 600 yet.. Good news, I paid off the bank for my Sigma two weeks ago.. Now I just have to finish paying my old gran back for my D800 and VR Drive... The D800 is just amazing, absolutely love my camera. I was however, woooood by the new Nikon D4s.. Its on video at the NAB.. Apparently lots of new cameras a that show... I guess we will hear about any new gear soon... B&H have been showcasing lots of new gear...

Destiny wrote:I tried using a tripod to capture flying bugs and birds but its painful.. You need to be really quick so a tripod is not the answer.. I tried to capture a dragonfly when it landed and focus on different body parts but they do not remain in one spot for more than a second or two.. I wanted to try focus stacking.. This is as close to a clear shot as I could get hand held at full zoom..